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Originally Posted by Silver
6. Charges and Payment
6.1 You must pay all the Charges for the provision of Services and/or Equipment, for which we bill you (whether you use the Services or someone else does), together with any Value Added Tax and any other taxes (at applicable rates from time to time) which apply in relation to any Charges payable under this Agreement. You must pay your bill by the due date for payment. You will be liable for the Charges from the day on which we first make the Services available to you unless we notify you otherwise.
6.2 If you do not make your payments on time, we may charge you a reasonable fee for late and/or non payment. We may also withdraw any discount we have given to you for payment in advance or payment by a particular means (e.g. direct debit). We may also charge daily interest on amounts not paid until we receive your payment in full at a rate equal to 4% each year above the Base Lending Rate of National Westminster Bank Plc whether before or after Judgment. Interest will continue to accrue even if the Agreement has been terminated, as long as this termination is not due to a breach by us. This does not affect our rights under Condition 19 below.
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I've highlighted the two important bits of that.
firstly the reasonable fee - yes it has to be reasonable, something that ntl can demonstrate represents is the cost they suffer for having to deal with an unpaid account. Given they can charge interest as well, this "fee" is the manpower / administration
cost ntl suffer. As many post have highlighted, it's the cost, not a profit making scheme. That's where many banks have come unstuck.
The Direct Debit extra charge I'd suspect is less clear cut in what can b3e applied. NTL have been clever using that word discount (not sure if they have repeated that word or expressed it differently in the schedule of charges). If it is truly a discount then they might well get round the legislation, but if it is a charge for paying by not DD methods, then they ruls as above, demonstrating it's a real cost, would apply. Now given that DD systems can largely be automated, but other payment methods might require manual input, the true scale of that £4.00 charge might be harder to dispute.